Tally and her friends had been Specials too, but a special kind called "Cutters." The Cutters were young and independent, and somehow they'd figured out how to rewire their own brains. They'd rebelled against the evil leader of the Specials, freed their own city, and saved Diego. Then they'd spread the mind-rain across the globe, ending the Prettytime forever.
As Aya stood before Tally, a mammoth reputation shiver went through her. This was the person who had made her world. Feeds, tech-heads, fameeverything important to her had come out of the mind-rain.
It was head-spinning, looking at a face so familiar, yet so strange.
For one thing, in Aya's school lessons Tally-sama had never looked scary. But in person her fingernails were long and sharp, her eyes deep black and penetrating. She was three years older now than during the mind-rain, of course, almost twenty, and she lived in the wild now, guarding it from the expanding cities.
Tally even looked wild: her hair long and untamed, her flash tattoos dulled by the sun, her skin darkened.
Aya pulled free of Frizz's grasp and gave a nervous bow, hoping her English wouldn't fail her.
"I'm honored to meet you, Tally-sama."
"Um, it's actually Tally Youngblood."
Aya bowed again. "I am sorry.
Sama is a title of respect."
"Great, another cult of me." Tally rolled her eyes. "Just what the world needs."
Aya heard a giggle. The other two Cuttersone boy, one girlhad pulled off their sneak-suit hoods to reveal faces like Tally's: pretty and cruel, laced with flash tattoos. Their eyes darted around the room with nervous energy, but at the same time smiles played on their faces, as if they were enjoying the excitement.
"My name is Aya Fuse."
Tally didn't bow back, just laughed. "No kidding. Every feed in this city seems to know you. And stop bowing!"
"I'm sorry." Aya found herself nodding. She wished somebody else would say something, but Hiro, Ren, and Frizz looked as fame-struck as she was.
The three Cutters were moving through the apartment, checking the other rooms.
"Has anyone else tried to get in here?" Tally called.
"No," Aya said. "This is a very secure building."
"Yeah, we noticed that in the ten seconds it took us to break in," the other Cutter girl said. "Is this what you call hiding, by the way? There's about fifty hovercams out there!"
"We tried to hide, but my face rank is recently very high."
The girl looked at her with a blank expression, as if the words had made no sense. "Face rank?
Does that mean you're some kind of government official? Aren't you a little young?"
"No. Face is a measure of reputation."
The girl's eyes swept around the vast apartment. "You actually live here? No wonder the cities are expanding. Still an ugly, and she's got five rooms!"
"I live here, but not every ugly gets to " Aya trailed off in frustration with her English. Hiro had been rightno one from outside the city would understand the reputation economy. And this didn't seem like the best time to explain.
"You're Shay-sama!" Frizz said, snapping out of an eyescreen spin. He whispered in Japanese, "Two hundred and fourteen, mostly from mentions in history classes."
Aya nodded, feeling stupid that she hadn't recognized Shay. All the Cutters were famous. Some even had their own cults, but Aya could never keep track of them.
"My apologies, Shay-sama," she said. "Recent history is not my best subject."
Tally and the boy giggled, and one of Shay's eyebrows arched. Aya felt herself turning red, like some littlie asking for an autograph.
"Don't worry about it," Shay said. "And don't do that 'sama' thing with me either."
Tally snorted. "Yeah, she prefers to be called Boss."
"I missed you too, Tally-wa," Shay answered.
"I'm confused," Frizz said.
Aya nodded in agreement, wondering if the Cutters were speaking some dialect her Advanced English class hadn't covered. Hiro and Ren looked like they were having trouble following at all. Foreign languages hadn't been as popular back before the mind-rain, when they'd gone to school.
But Frizz came to her rescue. "We just want to show the proper respect."
"Well, respect this." Tally turned to Aya. "We need to get you out of here, and soon. You've stumbled on something that's bigger than you think."
"Bigger?" Aya said. "Than the end of the world?"
"Bigger than this one mass driver. We've been finding them all over the planet."
Aya swallowed, wondering if Ren had been right. Maybe there really were a huge number of the freaks, a whole city somewhere. "Why haven't you told the global feeds?"
"The other mountains were all empty," Tally said. "You're the first person to find the projectiles.
And we didn't want anyone looking for the people who built them. They're dangerous."
Aya nodded. "I know, Tally-sama. I've seen them face-to-face."
"We figured that, once they came after you." Tally's eyes narrowed. "People who see them tend to disappear, including a friend of ours. That's why we're here."
"We need to get going, Tally-wa," the boy Cutter said. "The sun's coming up soon."
"Okay, Fausto, but first, two questions." Tally fixed Aya with her dark stare. "You didn't tell anyone we were coming, did you?"
Aya shook her head proudly, suppressing an urge to smirk at Hiro.
Tally smiled. "Good girl. Second question: I know you're great at mag-lev surfing, but have you ever ridden two to a hoverboard?"
"Yes."
"Recently, in fact," Frizz added.